Classroom aides are not fungible widgets who perform menial jobs and who can be replaced with temps. Rather, they are paraprofessionals who work closely with students and teachers and who have developed personal relationships with our children. No one would ever talk about outsourcing teachers or school administrators; these paraprofessionals are as important.

Although the school board is faced with a difficult financial reality, outsourcing classroom aides would hurt the children, teachers, and parents who depend on these paraprofessionals and their consistency in the classroom.

One of the best things about Susquehanna Township School District is its size. The district is small enough that it often feels like everyone knows everyone. At a recent athletics awards ceremony, many presenters and students referred to the district as a family. That family includes the paraprofessionals who in many cases not only work but live in our community.

If the school board wants to retain what is best about the district, then it needs to find a way to equitably share the pain of financial belt-tightening. Approving a raise for the district’s superintendent and then threatening to replace integral classroom aides with temps is not the way to solve the financial crisis or to engender the goodwill of students, parents, teachers, or taxpayers.